Song ‘Speeding Cars’ by IMOGEN HEAP (used with permission of the artist)

Medium rez 48MB MP4 download here

Special thanks to

• Song: IMOGEN HEAP
• Animations: Sinewave & Abramination
• Dance consultant: Richard James-Allen Physical.tv
• Nevada timelapse footage by Gary Hayes & Nadia Warner

Machinimatography, editing, avatanimation & concept by
Gary Hayes

LYRICS by Imogen Heap

Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins
just run with me through rows of speeding cars.
The papercuts the cheating lovers
The coffee’s never strong enough
i know you think it’s more than just bad luck

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t lose your head
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

Sleeping pills know sleeping dogs lie
never far enough away
Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years
You can’t keep on like this…
now’s a bad a time as any

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t kill yourself
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..it was a long time ago

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..it was a long time ago

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t lose your head
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t kill yourself
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

I put together this little mash-up of cool sims, avatars and very nice animations. I may use these concepts in collaborations with dancers coming up too.

“Nataraja is both the destroyer and the creator of the universe. He dances away the destruction of a world of illusion followed by the creation of a world of enlightenment.”

I recommend you also go to the YouTube site and see the high def version – it is worth it!

Second Life – THE GREAT DANCE “Myth of Creation through Avatar Dance” A FILM BY GARY HAZLITT (all choreography and avatars played by Gary Hazlitt)

Machinimatography, Music & Editing © GARY HAYES 2008.

If you want even better quality and hear the ‘cool’ music in stereo then download (medium rez) 64MB MP4 from here

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Bettina Tizzy’s NPRIL npirl.blogspot.com & Alpha Auer for locations inspiration
• Animations (some): Sine Wave & Abramination
• Avatars (some): Grendel’s Children, June Dion
• Music: Spectrasonic’s Omnisphere & Logic. Specially composed GARY HAYES

UPDATE: This video also premiered at Moves09, one of the leading Dance/Film festivals in UK in April and featured for 3 months in the Second Life, Linden Lab Machinima Showcase site.

OH AND MACBETH

Also threw together this nice video of a sim creation I was involved with very early on but was since developed by the folk in the credits after the video.

A ‘Space Navigator’ Machinima and Music by Gary Hayes. Filmed and edited by Gary Hayes.

(Note: This film does not demonstrate the many interactive elements, social intentions or literary integration. Please visit the island to see those first ‘virtual’ hand.)

A medium resolution (98MB MP4) download is available here.

Macbeth in Second Life Credits. Guide & credits here

SLURL – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54

A collaboration by Angela Thomas, Kate Richards and Kerreen Ely-Harper, from an original idea by Kerreen Ely-Harper.

• Producer: Kate RIchards (Nini Dubrovna)
• Director: Kereen Ely-Harper (Dorothy Porta)
• Virtual World Content Designer: Angela Thomas (Anya Ixchel)
• SL Design Consultant: Adam Nash (Adam Ramona)

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Initial stages of this project were mentored and developed through the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP) at Australian Film TV and Radio School (AFTRS).

This project has been funded and built by the New Media Consortium

NMC Team:
Larry Johnson (Larry Pixel)
Alan Levine (CDB Barkley)
Rachel Smith (Ninmah Ash)
NMC Second Life Building Team:
Chris Holden (CJ Carnot)
Beth Satchjen (Stella Costello)

Voiceover Actors:
Maggie Blinco
Boris Brkic
Christopher Morris
Ophelia Of The Spirits
Alice Parkinson
Evelyn Parsonage
Recorded at Megaphone Studios
Engineer: Shane Fahey

Additional thanks to:
Larry Johnson
Therese Fingelton
Gary Hayes
Jeff Wegener
Ian Waddely
Nick Noakes

My build and design of the Deakin University Arts Island almost a year ago in January of 2008. Special thanks to Deakin staff Jenny Grenfell, Fiona Phillips, Jo Raphael and Stephen Seagrave for their guidance. The general brief for this was based around a couple of escher and dali paintings alongside some basic teaching space and gallery areas. The video captures the organic growth of the design ideas – it is still growing as all good builds should do! The island has been in regular use by staff and students but closed to the general public.

Medium rez 105MB MP4 available here. Music composed and performed by Gary Hayes. These images with comments can be seen here.

Video, music & 447 Images © Gary Hayes and Deakin University

Below is the flickr slideshow embedded as an alternative

A machinima by Gary Hazlitt in the new virtual world Vastpark

The music is by Gary Hayes performing live on his Salvi Julia (concert string spacing) Harp at the Contemporary Composers Festival run with the Royal Academy of Music in London a few years ago. There is added ambient mood and specialised sound effects using LogicStudio.

Filmed and Edited by Gary Hazlitt ©JustVirtual 2008

Medium rez (47MB MP4) download available here

For Vastpark enquiries contact Bruce Joy on bruce@vastpark.com

What to do on Easter Saturday afternoon? Why not create a quick “Cyborg questioning existance, looking for something and some meaning in her life” machinima. This idea came about from playing with one of the default characters in CT5 (Crazy Talk 5) and using various imported songs. I quickly made a spaceship so the ‘cyborg’ can be seen in full body, and in which I (the Golem Robot character on the right seat) can sit and drive around various sims. The lip sync character is a CT5 ‘auto lip-sync’ take against one of my long time ago ex students (now a fully fledged pop diva) Imogen Heap’s wonderful track “Hide and Seek” (I wanted something vocoderised, slightly robotic) although this goes a lot deeper thanks to Immi’s great words. Also the subtle head movements and eye positions were recorded in separate live takes withing CT5.

I needed three appropriate sims for the three phases of the song. Ones that had a sense of dawning, evolving and evolved – also that were off the ground, so the spaceship could move around, inside, under, over etc: Three sprang immediately to mind. Planet Mongo a space city (evolved – spelt wrong on video, not Mondo! sorry rush job ;-(), Svarga (dawning) and Deakin (that I built – evolving). The main process was a quick 5 hours but editing took about an hour longer than normal because of rendering, all those green screen shots (the head shots against the reversed Space Navigator backgrounds).

————————————-
A medium rez, stereo MP4 52MB version can be downloaded here
————————————

Anyways hope you like this quick ‘sketch’ – the following info is mostly duped from the YouTube description.

A machinima by Gary Hazlitt completed on easter Saturday afternoon 2008. The song ‘Hide and Seek’ is by Imogen Heap from the album ‘Speak for Yourself’.

Special thanks to the creators of Second Life sims Planet Mongo built by Lumiere Noir (spelt wrong on video sorry, rushed, not Mondo!) and Svarga built by Svarog Laukosargas. Deakin sim and spaceship for this video built/designed by Gary Hayes.

Lip sync animation created using Crazy Talk 5, green screened in Final Cut. The spaceship shots were filmed live in Second Life.

Avatanimation, machinimatography and editing (in the usual 5 hours total!) by Gary Hazlitt

A JustVirtual Production
© Gary Hazlitt 2008

A two world machinima I did this week exploring the themes of a cross-world quest for love, mixed-reality and online game relationships. The song ‘The Soul of Icarus” was composed and sung by Gary Hayes © Cubrisound 2004 and a special thanks to my co-star, SilkCharm for her patience and WoW’ness. There are some nice Flickr film stills here too! and I am really spoiling you now a selection of video sites with the film on here – YouTube, Metacafe, Google and Blip.tv

“Come to the edge. We can’t. We’re afraid. Come to the edge. We can’t. We will fall! Come to the edge. And they came. And he pushed them. And they flew”. – Guillaume Appollinaire

Credits:

• Filmed in World of Warcraft and Second Life sims:
• CityScape from NBC and Marni created by Gary Hazlitt.
• Medium rez download (85MB MP4) available here.
• Machinimatography and editing by Gary Hazlitt © JustVirtual 2008

“And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return…” – Leonardo Da Vinci

Now I have had some time back in Second Life nice to visit a very special build, hat tip to Bettina over at NPIRL. As well as being inspired to pop over to this wonderfully rich sim designed and built by Baron Grayson I joined in the challenge of photographing it in stills (flickr set here) and video. Some of these are below and of course the video is a quicky mostly single long shot using the space navigator – of course, what else

So video, then description followed by some more nice stills

A Space Navigator Machinima by  GARY HAZLITT. Second Life Island Creation by  BARON GRAYSON. Steinway Grand Piano and Martin Backpacker Guitar One Take Improvisation by  GARY HAYES © 2008. Medium quality (69.5MB mp4 available here

“filmed in one take, then re-edited, vignette and desaturate filters added in places. Most of the playback made twice speed to improve smoothness as sim had quite low frame rates during capture. Enjoy” The wonderful Second Life 3rd generation sim, Templum ex Obscurum by Baron Grayson, machinima by Gary Hazlitt in one three hour session.

I ventured into fifty of them to review and sample the culture, creative, business and educational potential. On my travels I got out my virtual camera and decided to capture a bunch of small vignettes which quickly turned into a body of audio visual delights – so decided to create a nice seven minute video for posterity.

With over 300 million frequenting or registering for the non-game based worlds and millions of new investment in 2nd and 3rd generation services there seems to be no stopping them…Enjoy

75MB MP4 Download available at http://www.justvirtual.com/SVWS_2008.mp4

Here is a list of the worlds featured in my video in order of appearance:

• Kaneva
• YoVille (in Facebook)
• RocketOn
• Prototerra
• Gaia Online
• HiPiHi
• Google Lively
• Habbo Hotel
• Laguna Beach (vMTV)
• Whyville
• Twinity
• Cyworld
• Football Superstars
• Weblin
• IMVU
• Second Life
• Club Penguin
• Active Worlds
• vSide
• A Tale in the Desert
• Barbie Online
• Amazing Worlds
• Webkinz
• Worlds.com
• Spore
• Exit Reality
• and 15 others including SpineWorld, Stardoll, The Manor, There.com, Vastpark, Qwaq, PS3Home, GoSupermodel, Grockit, Croquet, Metaplace, Coke Studios, Dreamville, Dubit, Mokitown, Moove, Muse, The Palace, Playdo, Sora City, Voodoo Chat, TowerChat, Traveler, Virtual Ibiza

Video details:

The ‘Social Virtual’ World’s A Stage
A Film by Gary Hayes © Personalizemedia 2008

http://www.personalizemedia.com

“This is not a Game” – Music composed and performed by
Gary Hayes http://www.cubrisound.com

UPDATE: We are producing a special DVD so the videos have been temporarily removed for the moment.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p5zsCiYHceQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LLMGi5v-oyg[/youtube]

The Full Credits for the above film:

• Created by DC Spensley
• Produced and Directed by DanCoyote Antonelli
• Machinamatography by Gary Hazlitt
• Editing by Gary Hayes
• Original Score ZeroOne Paz
• Technical Director ZenMondo Wormser
• Costumes Queue Marlowe

SkyDancers:

• Assistant Director Anhinga Chaika
• Deborah Stranglove – Prima
• Angelique Menoptra – Prima
• Lina Lageos
• Pyper Dollinger
• Buffy Beale – Training Director
• Pielady Smalls
• Tatiana Kurri – Puch

ZeroG SkyDancers are Produced and Directed by real life artist DC Spensley – below is earlier descriptive synopsis of the work.

Second Spring is a completely LIVE story performance. SkyDancers perform in-flight choreography without the benefit of animations or gestures of any kind following cues given in REAL TIME on a private IM channel. DanCoyote “calls” the show to keep time with the score written and performed by ZeroOne Paz.

DanCoyote and Technical Director ZenMondo Wormser have pulled out all the stops this time and created the most dynamic stage set ever. Set pieces will evolve, vanish and change position as the story plays out.

Production Designer Queue Marlowe has created an incredible array of SkyDancer costumes called “cascades” that change many times over the hour long show.

Set pieces have been created by venerable Second Life artists Jopsy Pendragon and Nand Nerd. Expect the unexpected!

=========Earlier Press Release Jan 1, 2008=========
For Immediate Release

New Media Consortium Presents
ZeroG SkyDancers III – Virtual Flight Choreography

Pioneering Performing Arts Soar in the Metaverse – Again – Under the Direction of DanCoyote Antonelli ††

January 1, 2008, (Second Life) – Avatar DanCoyote Antonelli is accustomed to breaking new ground. Even in virtual worlds he is considered avant guarde. The real man controlling that avatar, DC Spensley, has been wowing virtual audiences since 2006 with art installations that would not be possible in real life, but perhaps the most coveted ticket in all of Second Life is one to a performance by his ZeroG SkyDancers. On January 6, 2008, the premiere of the highly anticipated, third, completely redesigned production of ZeroG SkyDancers will debut.

Second Life’s history making, critically acclaimed world performance group, the ZeroG SkyDancers is a new form of ensemble performance that uses the airspace of this virtual world, resulting in a cross between water ballet and aerial acrobatics, in ways that would not be possible in the physical world. Wearing spectacular, flowing costumes called cascades – that are many times larger than their avatars – the SkyDancers move through space, and become part of the stage themselves. Altering and evolving, their flight triggers audio samples, which provide a unique layer to the original musical score commissioned for the production.††

The production, sponsored by the New Media Consortium (NMC), will introduce an all-new reactive-interactive stage set that is repeatedly and dramatically transformed over the hour long performance. The ZeroG SkyDancers III will formally debut at 9PM Pacific Standard Time, Sunday, January 6, 2008 in the virtual world of Second Life. Seating is limited, but the show will run every week during the first 90 days of 2008, to accommodate the most guests possible. Tickets will cost $10 US ($3000 Lindens) a piece. For ticket information, please contact Spensley directly at dc@spensley.com.

Those with tickets will need to complete a 5 minute registration process with Second Life, http://www.secondlife.com , in order to access the ZeroG SkyDancers III performance.† A basic account is absolutely free, includes unlimited access to Second Life’s tools, events and communities.†Spensley recommends that audience members spend a minimum of 15 minutes learning the basic skills of the Second Life world prior to attending the performance. “Familiarizing yourself with basic navigation of Second Life will add even more enjoyment to the show,” said Spensley.

Gary Hazlitt’s video of a ZeroG SkyDancers II performance is available at YouTube and has received more than 10 thousand hits.†† “It’s difficult to convey the dramatic and immersive effects of the Second Life virtual world in a 2-D web environment, however this video by Gary Hazlitt does convey the overall concept of the performance,” said Spensley.

Some creation details for those who like that kind of stuff: I used the wonderful space navigator for nearly all the ‘tracking/pan/crane/dolly’ type shots combined with fraps PAL capture, then converted using Canopus Pro 3 to PAL Quicktime DVs for a final edit in Final Cut Pro. A final save out to DV at same resolution and converts down to MP4s for online distribution. The whole process, capture, processing, editing took just over six hours – I know, I am slacking! The builds and sim terraforms took significantly longer (!) but the music a quick 35 minutes in two single takes, so excuse a few ‘bum’ notes!

A Second Life ‘Windlight’ Machinima, Filmed and Edited by GARY HAZLITT

Higher rez 95MB MP4 640/480 download available here.

Steinway Grand Piano and Classical Guitar improvisations both performed, in one take, by GARY HAYES

All featured sim builds and terraforms created and designed by GARY HAZLITT (some unamed builds still in development)

Gary’s builds or sim creations featured include: Esperance, The Pond, ABC Island, Cog Island, Marni, Thursday’s Fictions, Melbourne Laneways and others.

A Just Virtual Video Production © Gary Hazlitt/Hayes 2007